For There is No Darkness in the Maker's Light
by Martini-September
Summary: "And when dawn finally comes, he finds that the nightmares come less, if at all, and he suspects that the elf beside him is her own beacon, shielding those she holds dear from the darkness within themselves."


He doesn't remember if he was ever content before her.

But content can't even begin to describe the feeling that rushes through him when her fingers slide along his jaw, stopping briefly on his chin as her head dips forward and their lips softly meet in a still moment of breathy sighs. She pulls back - her indigo irises practically glowing in the reflection of the dim candlelight that prevents the room from being overshadowed in darkness, and her head tilts slightly. He's seen this look a thousand times, and each time it takes his breath away for two completely different reasons.

He thinks back on the day they confessed their feelings for one another, when she had doubted his capability to care for her on the sole basis that her ears didn't curl into a shell as his did. When he saw her that first day in Haven - bruised and unconscious, he couldn't take his eyes off her. He would never admit this to her now, but she had been the very being to hold him to the hope that they would survive, that _he_ would survive, and he hadn't looked back on it since.

And such is the reason her demeanor is curious, because of the silent question she always asks when they lay together like this.

 _Why did you choose me?_

He wants to say that fate allowed him such, that the Maker willed them to meet at the expense of a town buried under twenty feet of snow and a mark on the left of her hand, that a darkspawn submerged into a magister's being was nearly allowed to destroy the world simply so he could command her army and fall in love with her. But this is no fairy tale, and he knows the answer is so much simpler. Yet for some reason the pit of his gut - the same that flutters as her nose nuzzles into his cheek - prevents him from thinking such simplicity.

He rolls her over, her lithe body fitting snug into the dips and valleys of his muscled frame, and she sighs into his ear as her fingers find their way to the curls of hair at the base of his neck. His lips trail to her shoulder; the soft kisses he plants there reducing her to giggles, and he can't help but smile. _She_ deserves to smile, but then again she deserves _everything_. He'd find a way to bring the moon itself to her if it meant being able to see her smile at him like this again.

Before her, he was simply trying to find a place in life. He thought he had known what he wanted when he was younger, but he hadn't been himself when was was younger. Following the aspirations of so many others, he thought he knew precisely what his life would entail. Thankfully, he was wrong, and it was an error he would repeat over and over again so long as he could run his hands languidly over her bare body, and worship her burning flesh with his lips though she were Andraste herself.

 _My beautiful forest sprite_.

" _Cullen_ ," she gasps, and though she isn't religious - not in the same sense as himself anyway, it's like a prayer spilling from her lips as he brings her to that exalted place only they can reach. Her hair splays like a halo around her head and onto the pillow beneath as she wreathes, and he can see the faint freckles speckling her cheeks from the intensity of the flush that surrounds them. Even her breath, which fans against his lips as he shifts them both, tastes so sweet against his parted lips as he breathes her in.

When they are like this, he doesn't even recall that which lies beyond the confines of where they are entwined, instead his thoughts are only her. Her. _Her_.

All for her.

And then, when they finally discover that highest peak together, she stares into his eyes... and by the Maker her very eyes are the envy of the heavens themselves; periwinkle merging with icy blue, an interesting contrast that reflects her personality curiously. There is mirth behind those troubled eyes, and he knows he is one of the fortunate few that can bring it out from where it cowers within her being. His warm brown irises bore into hers with all the intensity he can muster, and even if he were to mutter those three words in the span of their spent exhales, their gazes would still paint an even clearer picture, one only the two of them could possibly hope to understand.

It is silent, but the glow of their bodies seems to hum with its own aura, and in between sighs whispers of endearment find their way out into the miniscule distance that separates them. And when dawn finally comes, he finds that the nightmares come less, if at all, and he suspects that the elf beside him is her own beacon, shielding those she holds dear from the darkness within themselves. He is wide awake while she rests, and he finds himself smiling like a man reborn when his name tumbles quietly past her lips in slumber.

Perhaps, he thinks, he is a beacon for her as well, but the light within himself shies in comparison.


End file.
